Telegram of the Central Government
Congratulating the Eastern Red Army
on Its Great Victory
(August 8, 1933)
To the commander-in-chief and political commissar of the army fighting in the
East, and to be transmitted to all the comrade commanders:
On the eastern front, you gallant heroes have utterly routed the enemy's tenacious
Nineteenth Route Army. This victory, demonstrating that our Workers' and
Peasants' Red Army has already become even more powerful and even more
invincible, poses an extremely great threat to the Fifth "Encirclement and Suppression" of the imperialist Guomindang and is an initial victory in smashing the
enemy's Fifth "Encirclement and Suppression." We were extremely delighted to
hear this news. In this present period of historical change that will decide the
victory and defeat of revolution and counterrevolution, the Central Soviet Government is already organizing and leading the Red Army and the millions of workers.
peasants. and toiling masses nationwide to break through the Fifth "Encirclement
and Suppression" in the struggle to achieve a Soviet China. We are confident that
you gallant heroes, in the context of this overall task. will certainly rouse yourselves with even greater courage to move forward and eliminate even more of the
enemy, and achieve even greater and more glorious victories.


Chairman of the Central
Government
Mao Zedong
Vice-Chairmen
Xiang Ying
Zhang Guotao


This telegram was first published in Hongse Zhonghua, no. 101, August 13, 1933. We
have taken this version as our source because in it, several characters which are missing
from the text as reproduced in MaoZedongji, Vol. 3, p. 307, can be deciphered.


I. The Eastern Army (Dongfang jun) was one of two subgroups (the other being the
Central Army [Ziroqvangjurr]) formed when the Red Army was temporarily split during
the summer of 1933. The Eastern Army was made up of the Third Army Group and the
Nineteenth Division, with Peng Dehuai as its commander and Teng Daiyuan as its political
commissar. In early July 1933, it was ordered to attack eastward from the Central Base
Area into Fujian, with the aims of expanding Communist-controlled territory and disll"'CC·
ing Guomindang fOKCS from preparations for their impending encirclement campaign .